Shibayama Lacquer

Lacquer (urushi) has been an integral part of the Japanese lifestyle as a protective and decorative coating material for at least six thousand. Lacquer-coated earthenware pots and wooden combs have been found in Japanese Neolithic sites carbon dated to about 4500 b.c. It may well be mankind's first paint and superglue.

Urushi has been used to coat a multitude of things: temple and shrine interiors; furniture and chests; sliding doors; walls and architectural interior trim; eating vessels of every type; casks, ewers, and bottles; personal accessories; chopsticks, lamp stands, and paper products. Urushi’s soft surface, gentle yet bright gloss and deep colors fit the traditional Japanese room interior, a room filled with tatami mats, wood, earth, and paper. The traditional Japanese New Year feast is incomplete without lacquer ware. Particularly, special decorative lacquered tiered boxes are brought out at this time to contain the festive fare. Today, urushi is even used to decorate such things as elevator doors and computer cases.

Urushi is the sap of a tree (Rhus verniciflua), a living substance- even after it has been refined and pigmented and applied in numerous coatings to a wooden core.

Once the sap has been removed from the urushi tree, it is aged for from three to five years and then processed to form a number of lacquer types with different properties. Once applied over a (usually) wooden core, it undergoes a chemical hardening process. A hardened coating repels water and resists acid, alkali, salt, and alcohol. It even insulates against heat and electricity. The substance contains urushiol (the same stuff as is found in poison oak and ivy), which is responsible for lacquer's wonderful material properties as well as giving some people a month or so of severe itching if liquid urushi is touched. The complex organic structure of urushi resisted analysis until the last decade or so, and there are still mysteries that need clarification. The impervious yet resilient surface, a surface that is terribly strong yet soft to the touch, has given lacquer ware its appeal over the millennia.

Shibayama lacquer was introduced by Senzo Onogi at the end of the Edo era (1603-1868), Shibayama is highly decorative lacquer which incorporates finely finished pieces of ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell horn and other materials inlaid into gold laquered, wooden panels or sometimes ivory grounds. Shibayama lacquers were almost exclusively made for the export market.

Photos courtesy of Vassar College -- for more on Japanese Lacquer visit http://faculty.vassar.edu/anwatsky/art358/lacquer.html

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